Haatem

The most striking thread running through his career is Ascot. Of his five wins, two have come at the same famous track, including back-to-back victories at Royal Ascot in June 2024 and June 2025. Winning at Royal Ascot once is a genuine achievement — the competition is international, the pressure enormous, the occasion unlike almost anything else in the sport. Doing it two years in a row, in the same race, makes you a course specialist in the truest sense. Hannon has been open about the journey it took to get there, admitting he persisted with Haatem over six furlongs for too long before jockeys Jamie Spencer and James Doyle both told him the horse needed further. Switching him to seven furlongs to a mile unlocked the best of him: he wins 2 from 5 races at that trip, a 40% win rate.

Hannon describes him simply as sound, honest, versatile and very good — which, from a trainer who has sent out 118 winners already this season, is not faint praise. There is also clearly genuine affection for the horse beyond the statistics. After last year's Ascot win, Hannon spoke about the emails and messages that pour in whenever Haatem runs, calling him a horse who has pleased everybody all the way along. That kind of public warmth is rare.

With Royal Ascot 2026 on the horizon, the plan is to run him once beforehand — possibly just a racecourse gallop — before targeting the Wolferton again, the race he won in 2025. At five years old and racing just yesterday, he is very much in his prime. Whether he can become a three-time Royal Ascot winner in the same race is the question that makes the next few weeks genuinely worth following.